Terry Fox Friday!

What a beautiful day for a Terry Fox run!
We came ready to run/walk wearing all sorts of costumes: bright, fun, orange, neon, tutus, ninja-turtles and more, and together as a school we carried on Terry's Marathon of Hope.
Each $ donated and each km counted all make a world of difference!
Thank you to all for your support!

We started with an assembly in the gym.

And we're off!

Cooling down with freezies after our run/walk. Raising money for cancer research sure is sweet! :)

http://www.terryfox.org/TerryFox/

Multiples, Terry Fox and Transportation!

Hello!

Welcome back to our divisional choir singers! It was nice to be a full group again this morning!

We continue to work on multiples in Math, and practised counting by 12, 13 and 15 this morning. We also looked at a group of 8 different numbers and, using our multiples rules, decided what digits they were multiples of. 828 'won' by being the number that belonged to the most groups. 828 is a multiple of 2,3,4,6 and 9! Wow!

In Français we read with our partners for LaLaLa and continued reading our article about Terry Fox. Did you know that Terry ran 42 kilometres a day, and ran a total 5 373 km as part of his Marathon of Hope? Terry's dream was for each Canadian to give $1 for cancer research, which would raise 22 million dollars. His Marathon of Hope raised 24.17 million dollars!

In Science, we worked as a class to sort a group of common items (modes of transportation). We had to ask a specific question that would divide themes of transportation into 2 subgroups. We started by asking if the modes had wheels. From there we were able to divide each of the subgroups into 2 more subgroups by asking another specific question. Are the modes human-powered or powered by a motor? Are the vehicles used on water or land? We will continue dividing the groups until they are in smallest subgroups possible.

Have a great afternoon!
Looking forward to a fun-filled Terry Fox Friday! :)

What a Wednesday!

We were busy in Math this morning!

We learned our first mental math strategy for the year  - a multiplication strategy where you cut and paste the extra zeros. We spent time practicing this strategy in class and will continue to review and practice over the next week.

We also continued working with multiples and had a chance to pair up and play "monstres de multiples."

We also had our first library period and a visit from Mme Marcoux for a lesson on cyberbullying.

What a great morning of learning! :)

P.S. Be sure to stay up-to-date with all Ness events by visiting the "Room 208 News" page on our classroom blog AND by visiting our school blog: http://nessmiddleschool.blogspot.ca. A link to the Ness blog can also be found on the righthand side menu of this blog.

Happy Tuesday!

We've been busy learning new things in all three subjects!

In Mathé, we are working on multiples. Yesterday, we started by writing out the first 10 multiples for different numbers (ex. 8: 8,16, 24, 32, 40...). Today, we learned different 'multiples tricks' so we can easily determine if a number (not matter how big) is a multiple of another number. For example, 705 is a multiple of 5 because its last digit is a 5 (and numbers that are multiples of 5 end in either a 5 or a 0). 705 is also a multiple of 3 because the sum of its integers (la somme de see chiffres) is 12, and 12 is a multiple of 3. Cool, right?!

In Français, we are continuing with LaLaLa and are reading well with our partners.

We have also started reading an article about Terry Fox, his goals and how he achieved each one. We will use this article as a template for writing our own goals, which we will being working on next week.

Finally, in Science, we are conitnuing our discussion of classification systems and their advantages and disadvantages. Our next step is to work: as a class, in groups, in pairs and then individually to create different classification systems for different groups of objects, including modes of transportation, clothing items, buttons and beans. Almost anything can be sorted and organized into a classification system!

Hope your week is off to a great start! :)

It's Friday!

Happy Friday!
It's hard to believe we've already finished our second full week of school together!
Here's a look at what we've been up to.

We started our morning with a mental math assessment. It was SO hard!
We worked our best to finish as many questions as we could in 20 minutes.

This assessment wasn't for marks; it was for Mme Careen to see what mental math strategies we should be working on this year. We'll repeat a very similar assessment at the end of the year to see how much we've improved!

After Math, we moved on to Science... and we watched Curious George! Really!
We have started discussing different classification systems that we see in our daily lives, and Curious George helping out at his local library was the perfect example of how a group of objects (in this case, books) can be organized in many different ways. Not all organization systems are created equal, and each system can have advantages and disadvantages.
We applied what we learned in the video to our shoes. How many different ways can we group our footwear? What specific questions can we ask to classify our shoes into groups that become more and more specific?
We'll continue applying this concept in class next week.

We ended our morning with a double Français period and today we started the second "La" of our "LaLaLa;" reading with a partner! Reading with a partner offers us a chance to read aloud to someone and also hear someone read to us. It allows us to practice our pronunciation, fluidity and expression. We will continue reading with a partner for the next few days before being introduced to the last "La."

Wishing you all a great weekend! :)

P.S. Please visit the "Room 208 News" page (link is on the side menu bar) for a few announcements and shout-outs!
Go Knights!

A great day for a BBQ... and for learning!

It was so great to see so many families at our "Meet the Teacher" BBQ after school today! The weather was beautiful, the teacher scavenger hunt kept us busy (and learning some pretty neat things about the Ness staff!) 

and the chips were as tasty as ever! :)

Here are a few pictures from our morning of learning together:

We spent period 2 with Mme Marcoux today. Mme Marcoux is our guidance counsellor and resource teacher this year. She talked to us about Peace Week and how being able to communicate well with others is so important so that we can all understand each other and work towards peace.

We were divided into teams and had to create our own communication sounds to complete 

a human "battleship" challenge. 

Please ask me about the game and what sounds my group used to communicate during the game!

We ended our morning with Français. Here we are reading independently during LaLaLa. We got to chose our own books from Mme's classroom library and read everything from magazines and Garfield to hockey stories and 

non-fiction National Geographic-type books.

What a great day! Can't wait for tomorrow! :)

Happy Friday!

We've made it through our first week! Yahoo!
We've been working hard learning our schedules and establishing classroom routines...
and will continue working on communicating with each other en français! ;)
Here's what kept us busy this morning:

Here we are playing the card game "War," but with a Math twist.

We played three rounds, each with a different partner, and each with a different math operation.

Round 1: Addition

Round 2: Subtraction

Round 3: Multiplication

The value of the face cards changed a little bit, too. For the first two rounds, Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13. 

For the multiplication round, King = 0 instead of 13.

This is a great game that we can easily play at home to review our basic Math facts. 

Are you up for the challenge, Mom and Dad?

Here we are doing our daily LaLaLa reading in français. We read independently for 8 minutes today and we will continue to add 1 minute daily until we reach 10 minutes. We will learn how to read with a partner next week.

We ended our morning with a team challenge in Science. We worked in our table groups to build a free-standing structure using 20 pieces of dry spaghetti, 1 m of tape and one marshmallow. 

We only had 18 minutes to create the tallest structure we could.

We had many successes and failures with our designs and learned that having a plan before getting started is a good idea. We had a great time collaborating with our classmates and are looking forward to our next team challenge, which could pop up at any time...!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Vive le Ness! :)

A busy Thursday!

What a great morning of learning we had today!

In Mathé, we completed a formative (not for marks) basic skills assessment. We completed 80 questions (20 questions of each basic operation: + - x / ). We only had 4 minutes to do each section (Yikes!)  and after each section we took a brain break! Mme Careen taught us lots of silly dance moves, like the funky fish!

In Science, we started our "Diversity of Living Things" unit with a sorting activity. Students worked in teams to place a bag of miscellaneous objects into groups with a commonality. We then compared how each team classified their objects and were surprised to see how many different object groups were created.

In Français, we started with LaLaLa again today. After reading independently, Mme Careen read us a page from the book she was reading. It was a story all about the hardships of having neighbours that kept more than 100 chickens in their yard! We then and a chance to discuss what WE would do if our neighbours kept more than 100 chickens. Please ask me what my group discussed!

We also continued our discussion about our classroom beliefs and what we (and Mme Careen) need to do to live them each and every time we come to school. We came up with some great words: motivation, feedback, prudent, dependable and more! We grouped all of our common ideas together and Mme Careen is going to write them on our chart paper. From there, we will begin to write sentences/paragraphs that will become our class belief statement for the year.

Two quick reminders: 

- HPV vaccination sheets are due back to the school tomorrow! Sheets must be returned even if you child is not getting vaccinated. 

- All other Triad forms are also due back tomorrow. 

Thank you so much for your help with all of these house-keeping items.

Have a great evening! :)

Tangrams, LaLaLa and Knights are...

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Here's what we were up to today in Room 208.

We started off our day with a tangram challenge! We worked in teams of 3 and needed to use 7 shapes (tangrams) to build a bigger shape. It was WAY trickier than we thought!

In Français, we started with LaLaLa. What is that?! LaLaLa is a daily literacy activity that has students reading individually, with a partner and in a group with a teacher (Mme Careen). This will be done for 10 minutes at the beginning of every Français class. We started today with "Lecture Autonome" (reading individually) and will introduce the next "La" - Lecture Avec Partenaire (reading with a partner) - early next week.

After reading, we started talking about our classroom beliefs and goals for the year. After discussing the statements: Knights are respectful, Knights are responsible and Knights are learners, we all had a chance to add our ideas of what that might look like for us in our classroom this year. We wrote our ideas on small post-it notes and added them to the three chart paper signs posted on the board. We will review all of our words at the beginning of class tomorrow and continue to add our ideas until we feel that all of our views and beliefs of what it is to be a Knight are represented. This will become the foundation of our goals for the year (that we will write as a class) and these goals, in turn, will be the model for our own personal goal setting that we'll begin discussing later next week.

Go Knights! 

Smarties and quizzes

Happy Tuesday, Knights!

We started our day with a chance to learn even more about our classmates. We learned more about each other while eating Smarties! Who doesn't love chocolate before 10:00am? Yum!
Each colour of Smartie represented a different topic for each student to chat about
(RED - something that happened yesterday, ORANGE - Something you do well, etc).

After our Smarties activity, we did our first French writing of the year. After answering Mme Careen's silly True/False quiz on the first day of school, it was time for us to each write our own quiz! We each wrote 6-7 statements, of which a minimum of three had to be true.

After we wrote our statements, Mme Careen organized us into groups so we could put our classmates to the test! How many people could we trick with our "All About Me" facts?

We had a great morning learning more about our new friends in Room 208!
I wonder what we'll up to tomorrow?

Happy Monday!

We had a great morning together getting to know each other by completing a "Trouve quelqu'un qui..." activity.
I learned that not many students have a red bicycle nor wear necklaces! :)

We also spent a good part of our morning getting our lockers and school supplies organized. We put together a "Mme Careen binder" for français, mathé and science and we will ask Mme Ernst and Ms Miller what we need to get organized for social studies and ELA.

A few reminders for the week:

1) If you have not yet signed and sent back the forms handed out at triad conferences,
please do so by the end of the week.

2) Boys volleyball ID camp was today at lunch. Girls volleyball ID camp will be tomorrow at lunch. The first Cross-Country practice for the year will be Wednesday at lunch. M. d'Auteuil is working hard at finalizing a schedule for all fall athletics and will have it posted as soon as possible.

3) Volunteers! Might you be interested in volunteering on field trips/at the school this year? If so, please ensure you get the process started right away! All volunteers need to have a criminal record check and a child abuse registry check completed and on file with the school division. The cost of this process is covered by the division, but can take anywhere from 6-8 weeks to complete. For more information, feel free to contact our super fabulous secretary Ms Baker in the office.

Wishing you all a great week!
Go Knights!

What a great first day!

Hello there 6F3 Knights!

We had such a great time getting to know each other this morning!

After getting our locks opened and finding our way to Room 208 with our agendas and our pencil cases we were ready to get started. We lined up in alphabetical order and then by birthday order, practiced our handshakes as we introduced ourselves to our classmates and did a silly True/False quiz all about Mme Careen.  M. d'Auteuil shared some fun facts about himself, too!

After locker break, we headed to the gym for our first assembly of the year, did a tour of the school, found our lunch room and even found time for our first class photo of the year!

What a great looking group!

We are a silly group, too!

We're already looking forward to Monday and all of the fun activities we have planned.

Be sure to practice that handshake this weekend so you are ready to keep on meeting and getting to know everyone in our fabulous group!

Have a great weekend! Go Knights!

Bienvenue! Welcome!

September is here and a new school year is upon us!

I am very excited to be a part of the Grade 6 teaching team who is making history as Ness Middle School transitions to a french immersion middle school!

I am looking forward to meeting all of you and spending a great Grade 6 year together.

À bientôt! :)